


Blossoming Love

by GalileoSunshine



Series: ChikaRikoWeek2018 [2]
Category: Love Live! School Idol Project, Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Confessions, F/F, Hanahaki Disease, Love Confessions, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love, hanahaki byou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 04:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13942179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalileoSunshine/pseuds/GalileoSunshine
Summary: When Riko's confession to Chika is unreturned, flowers begin to grow in her throat.





	Blossoming Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 4 of ChikaRikoWeek 2018! Prompt: Flowers

_“I love you.”_

Looking back, that’s probably where it started. On the beach that day, with the sun just beginning to rise from the horizon, holding Chika’s hand.

Riko had poured her heart and soul out to Chika in those three words. It was all she could think of, to show her gratitude and appreciation. Chika had allowed her, _wanted_ her to be selfish, to put herself above Aqours if it meant facing the piano again, finding her love for it again…smiling again. In that moment, all her feelings welled up inside her and burst like a dam. How could she not have confessed?

And yet, Chika said nothing in return. Perhaps she had misunderstood.

Her silence made Riko flush, and she suddenly wished she had never said those words in the first place. She wished she could recapture those white puffs of air that escaped from her mouth, and swallow them back down.

Riko returned home from the beach that day with a lump in her throat. At first, she brushed it off as just her emotions roiling inside of her. That’s how all those romance novels she bought always described it, right? A lump in your throat.

And yet, the feeling didn’t go away. Not the next day, nor even the day after that. Riko could ignore it, like a smell that disappeared after spending enough time in a room. But whenever Riko thought about it, the sensation returned.

It remained, and it became a constant companion, like a mole or a birthmark. It stayed in her throat well past their second Love Live, and the closing of their school, until one day, Riko felt it shift, and grow, tickling her throat.

It grew well past uncomfortable, scratching at her inside as though she had swallowed sandpaper, pins and needles dragged along tender flesh. And when she tried to cough it away…

White and pink flower petals sputtered out of her.

She watched in amazement as they floated in the wind, before slowly drifting to the ground.

“Whoa, are there cherry blossom trees still blooming?” Yoshiko said.

“Um…I don’t–” Riko tried to explain, but another cough racked her body, and she blew out petals again.

Yoshiko gaped with her mouth open. “Are those coming out of you!?”

“Y-you’re seeing things, Yocchan!” Riko stuttered out, and quickly swept away the petals on the floor. “I think you’re staying up too late playing games.”

Riko quickly ran away, leaving the dumbfounded Yoshiko to think what she may. Riko became much warier of her those around her when she coughed after that.

Riko also slowly came to realize that the petals had something to do with Chika. It happened whenever they were together, the sharp, stinging sensation in her, and the coughs that led to petals streaming out of her.

It happened whenever she felt Chika’s eyes on her, admiring her as she wrote compositions or played the piano. She felt the scratching and had to excuse herself to cough out petals. It happened each time Chika smiled her dazzling smile, and Riko’s heart would race and her breaths would catch in her throat, only to be let out later in a flurry of white and pink. Each time Chika excitedly hugged her, her warmth enveloping her and the smell of tangerines on her, Riko would flush and run away to sneeze out pollen and cough cherry blossoms.

“Are you okay?” Chika would ask her with that cute, curious face. “You seem kinda sick lately.”

Chika’s concern for her set Riko’s heart aflutter, but at the same time, it made her throat burn like fire.

“I’m ok,” she responded, trying to sound confident, but her voice came out raspy. Even speaking made her want to scratch her throat out. “Don’t worry about me, Chika-chan.”

“…If you say so,” Chika would say, hesitantly, and put it out of her mind.

She learned the name of her condition from Hanamaru, telling stories to the Aqours members in the library about unnatural illnesses that she had read. It was called _hanahaki byou_ , a disease where flowers grow inside you, making you cough up petals, and it grew out of a severe one-sided love.

It made sense then. Her unanswered confession to Chika on the beach was the epitome of unrequited love.

And supposedly, it could only be cured when the person’s feelings were returned.

Riko left the library that day depressed. Would she be coughing out flowers forever?

If Chika didn’t understand the meaning of her words that day, should she try confessing again? But how could she? On the beach with Chika, it had been spontaneous, a flood of emotions that she couldn’t hold back. She’d have to work up the courage on her own this time. And if Chika _did_ understand what she meant, but she didn’t return her confession, why would confessing a second time make a difference? And what if Chika rejected her outright this time? The thought alone was enough to make her want to cry.

Riko laid in bed that entire evening, in the dark and in her own melancholy, doing nothing save coughing out flower petals until she rested on a bed not made of cotton and foam, but of cherry blossom petals. Meanwhile, her phone buzzed with messages from Chika.

_I’m out on the balcony! Are you coming out?_

_…hey, are you ok? Your lights are off._

_It’s ok if you don’t feel like talking today! Have a good night!_

Riko turned off her phone. What was the point anyways? She buried her face in the sea of petals around her.

Chika probably didn’t feel the same way toward her at all. Riko thought she knew Chika better than anyone, save maybe You. They spent every possible second together at school, they talked for hours on end over the phone and across their balconies. They’ve spent nights staying up till 3 am coming up with lyrics and writing songs. They practiced and danced and sang and performed together.

In all that time, Chika has never looked at her the same way she looked at Chika. She’s never sighed with longing at Riko. She hasn’t shed one blush of red for her. In fact, Chika hugged her far too easily, held her hands too readily, to consider her anything more than just a friend.

And she’ll have to be fine with that.

“Sorry for the other day,” Riko said from the balcony, some nights later. Chika shook her head.

“It’s fine! We all have bad days.”

“Chika-chan, we’re…good friends, right?” Riko wasn’t sure where wanted to go with the question. But she was tired, and in search of something to hold on to, something to comfort her.

“Of course we are! What kind of question is that, silly?” Chika responded and laughed. That tinkling laugh that was like water and sunshine to the buds in Riko’s throat, and Riko knew she’d be coughing out the blossomed petals after their conversation.

“Are we anything more?” she asked breathlessly, unsure if Chika heard her.

“Hmm, I guess it’s a bit different than my friendship with the first years, or the third years.” Chika grinned at her, smiling all the way up to her eyes. “We’re best friends!”

Riko tried to smile as well. Their conversation ended soon afterwards.

Riko laid in bed that night, trying to content herself with just being Chika’s friend. A relationship as close as theirs, even if was merely platonic, was more than she could have ever asked for after moving to Uchiura. Riko told herself, over and over in her head, that she can be happy just spending every day with Chika as usual, never telling her the truth, and letting her feelings of love wither away unnoticed.

But Riko knew it wasn’t true. Just as the flowers in her throat grew and grew, her love for Chika only continued to grow. The flowers spewing out of her, more and more each day, was a constant reminder of her feelings.

And Riko knew the sickness was getting worse.

She woke up one morning with a pain in her throat sharper than ever before, as though something was _clawing_ its way out. She clutched her throat tight as she rolled and fell out of bed. Barely able to breathe, she curled into a ball and heaved out an entire vine of cherry blossoms. Their white petals were stained with flecks of red.

Riko stayed home that day.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” Chika asked her later, worried because Riko had skipped a day of school. Of course she would come. She always came. “You’ve been worrying me for a while now.”

“I told you I’m fine,” Riko said, but her pale face and tired smile said otherwise. Riko hoped Chika wouldn’t pry any further. And she didn’t. Chika did something far worse. She opened herself up.

“I care about you Riko-chan, and if there’s anything bothering you lately, I want to help! There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”

Chika flashed her a gentle and warm smile, and Riko swallowed down the vines scrambling up her throat. “I…”

Chika took her hands. “You know you can tell me anything, Riko-chan,” she said, her voice soft and so very, very kind that it made Riko’s heart ache that she’s been lying to her.

And suddenly, Riko couldn’t hold it back anymore. She doubled over and coughed violently into her hand, a shower of cherry blossoms and blood scattering across her palm and over the floor.

“Riko-chan!?” Chika’s voice was full of panic. Riko was unable to answer, her body jerking forward with each cough, and each cough sending showers of petals and pollen into the air.

Trying to help as best she could, Chika fell on her knees and tried to hold Riko steady, as she retched over and over. The floor became littered with petals and crimson blots. The sight of blood made Chika’s stomach churn, but she never looked away from Riko.

Riko finally finished, and collapsed in exhaustion against Chika, leaning her head into her shoulders. And Chika hugged Riko tight, rocking her ever so slightly, rubbing circles into her back to comfort her.

“Hey, Riko-chan, do you have someone you like?”

Riko’s breath hitched.

“That’s _hanahaki byou_ , isn’t it? The thing Hanamaru-chan was talking about?”

Riko was afraid to answer, but after all that’s happened, Chika deserved to know. “Yes, I…like someone,” she confessed with shaky breaths.

“Tell me about her,” Chika whispered. Riko thought for a moment.

“She’s dazzling and radiant and warm, like the sun,” Riko began, but then stopped just as quickly, as her confidence failed her. “But you don’t expect a star to love you back.”

“…Who is it?”

Riko shook her head. Saying she liked someone was one thing, but saying _who_ was another. Especially when that person was right next to her.

“Riko-chan, look,” Chika pulled away just a bit and put her hand to her mouth. She forced a cough, and orange petals sputtered out of her. They were fragrant, Riko noted. Osmanthus flowers.

Then the realization hit her, and she gasped. “Chika-chan, you…”

“I have someone I like too,” she said, and smiled nervously.

Riko felt her heart beat like a drum, reverberating all the way up to her skull.

“If I tell you who I like, will you tell me who you like?”

Riko bit her lip, anxiety flooding her entire body. Did she want to know? Was that why Chika didn’t return her confession the first time?

What were the chances that it was her?

And then she noticed Chika, her brows furrowed, the light in her eyes quivering, she was biting her own lips. She looked scared, and hopeful. Hoping Riko would say yes. But why? Because she hoped for a certain answer? Was it because…she suspected that they liked each other?

Riko felt a surge of hope within her, and she grasped for it, like light in the darkness, light that Chika always brought with her, because she was sunshine itself.

“Okay,” Riko agreed.

Chika took a long breath. “The girl I like came into my life like a miracle. She helped me find my radiance. She’s always right by my side, and she's so beautiful and talented. Actually, she already confessed to me once.”

Riko’s heart skipped a beat, and she found herself holding her breath. The spark of hope lit into a flame.

“That time, I was scared of what she meant. I couldn't believe a girl like her could like a girl like me. So I didn't say anything back. And I kept on as though we were friends. But now...I think I'm ready to believe her, and...I want to give her an answer.”

Riko felt tears welling up, and the sobs rising up prevented her from speaking. She only nodded.

“I love you, Riko-chan.”

It happened slowly, then all at once, her tears welling up, then springing loose, and she couldn’t stop them running down her cheeks. She wrapped Chika in a fierce hug, and cried into her shoulders and her neck. “I love you too, Chika-chan! I love you so much!”

She wasn't sure if Chika could understand her over her sobs and her hiccups. In the back of her mind she noticed that her hiccups weren't accompanied by flower petals, and her throat felt clearer than it ever had.

But in that moment, all that mattered in Riko's mind was Chika in her arms, and her in Chika's arms, and the happiness she felt of having her love returned.

**Author's Note:**

> Phew, I feel like this fic tested my writing in several aspects. It contained a lot more angst when I really like to write fluff, and it contained a lot of internal thoughts and monologuing, which I'm also not used to writing. I did my best though, and as usual, I hope you enjoyed!


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